Justification for the Spread of Anti-Religious Sentiments

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I split this thread from the “What Religion is the Biggest Con?” thread, beginning with Matthew E.'s post. I felt that the thread had somewhat skewed from the original topic and was interesting enough to deserve it’s own topic.
Peace,
-Skep
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Yesterday, two Mormon missionaries knocked on my door and attempted to sell me belief in their religion. As I listened to their spiel, I pondered whether I should be the one enlightening them; a very pretentious thought I admit. As I listened to these two gentlemen, I realized that they sincerely believed in God. This single belief brings them peace and happiness. Of course I could have began to elucidate the countless errors in the Book of Mormon, but what purpose would this serve? Perhaps I would feel a great sense of intellectual superiority over two young men that have probably never questioned their faith, and for this reason alone would be incapable of defending it. I proceeded to kindly tell them that I believed no one ultimately knows whether God exists or not, and interestingly enough, they were able to accept my position, as I can accept theirs. While I believe they are completely ignorant and investing a great deal of their time believing in a religion created by a drunk, they conversely feel great sympathy that I will burn in hell.

But I do believe that we each wished the best for each other, and regardless of what religion you believe in or don’t, this is what matters. I am not so sure if the ends justify the means, but if believing in an intangible thing brings you happiness and shows you how to lead a successful life, and repectfully treat others, perhaps your belief has served its purpose and was not a waste of time.

Mormonism is just an excuse for polygamous Christantity

Maybe so, but to each their own… that kind of faith is not offensive to me. Faintly irritating, maybe… Still, I don’t think that faith manifests like that in the majority of believers. I agree with Magius in that religion tends to encourage overtly irrational and ignorant behaviour, and more importantly it leads people to neglect this life in favour of the next one.

I have to say that I agree with grave disorder. I may find their ignorance irritating at worst, but as long as they don’t try to inflict their will upon me, that is all I care about. If somebody chooses to be (in my mind) ignorant, why should I care? Is it my duty to tell Mormons that they are full of shit? They seem to think it is their duty to me that I am. I prefer for all of us to be full of shit together, and leave each other alone. As for the irrational and ignorant behavior that religion sometimes induces, once again, as long as my liberties are not infringed upon.

Excellent post Matthew! I quite enjoyed it as this has been an issue that I have struggled with since I “came to my senses” and became an atheist. I think it is the big question for all atheists, and without the threat of hell fire, why should we feel as inclined to “elucidate” such information to our fellow man?

Gotta go, but when I get a chance, I’d like to discuss this further.

Two mormon parents sit me down every night and try to sell me to there way of thinking. As I listen to them I relies they believe in God. This belief brings them an amount of peace and happiness to their life. No matter what errors I point out in what they say there is no end to there comebacks, and even if I could really trap them it would not waver there beliefs at all. It would as they put it “be a test of their faith” and they would grow stronger. Every morning we discuss and pray, every meal we pray, and discuss, every night we read the book of mormon, pray, and discuss, every Monday we have religion based family time where we sing, pray, and discuss, every Sunday we plan our week around this church. That is the two parents. The church dose more every morning they attempt to indoctrinate my thoughts for an hour and a half at a time. Selling there version of the truth. On Wednesdays I go to fellowship with youth of my age to build relationships with people of good ideals. On Sunday I attend their church where they literally and figuratively force feed me the beliefs they base their life around. That is what the church dose. The beliefs I must for fear of punishment uphold sell even more to my already controlled brain. I may not attend in any sexual activity. Or in basic words touch a girl in a place where she is not normally clothed. Clothed by the dress code I must follow. I must not drink hot drinks including coffee or tea. I get weird looks when I consume any caffeinated beverage. I must take of no illegal drugs, must drink no alcohol, and smoke no cigarettes. I am required to do no work on Sunday, and play not that day either. I absolutely can not have any homosexual tendencies. I may not also in my language speak any vulgar things. Nor listen to or watch or participate in any vulgar activities. I must steer clear of R rated movies, or inappropriate music. Pornography is by no means acceptable. I could not date in any form until I reached the age of 16. I am expected to save money for a trip that would last me two years of my life. On this trip the only things I am to do is read the scriptures, preach, and pray. That and more is what I am expected to uphold.
I have two mormon parents this is what they believe. I have told them numerous times I do not agree; I tell them what I think not to convert them, but only to FREE myself.
I have two mormon parents this is what they believe. It makes them happy. They find joy a since of peace, and security. I am in a state of endless turmoil. I can not escape from what they inflict. I am racked with endless insecurities, by all that they sell me. If they only knew what is going on inside of me because of this… If they only knew what I did to myself because of what brings them happiness. They would lie awake for all there nights.
I have two mormon parents this is what brings them happiness a since of security. So you tell me is this intangible thing, is this source of happiness, is this killing force alright?

For me it is all the irrational belief that comes along with a belief on God, the anti-abortion, the anti-homosexuality, etc. etc. These are all fuelled by religious beliefs and you can’t have a rational discussion about the matter or even agree to disagree, it is wrong because God says so.

There is nothing good about religion, looking at it from an individual stance is the wrong way to look at it, it may be great to have some sort of certainty in life (well until God fails you) but the damage religion wreaks on societies overwhealms any potential individual benefit.

Europe spent centuries in poverty and fear because of religion, there were countless crusades which killed so many to liberate the “holy” land and then there is today, where Israel exists for religion causing the rest of the world a permanent headache, the fundamentalist terrorists are casting a shadow over our entire world, Christian fanatics harass abortion doctors and mothers who are having abortions when they need help, not abuse, much of Africa is kept in poverty and heartache because contraception is “wrong” in the eyes of the Catholic church, I could go on for hours.

Religion is a tool of suppresion, the small individual benefits are nothing compared to the horrible cost we bear for such beliefs.

Fanatical Atheism is the way to go!

“Religion is a tool of suppresion”

Yeah. There used to be a difference between kneeling down and bending over. Now, both look the same from a safe distance.

In the UK 60-70% of people are religious. Yet, opinion polls show support for abortion rights and homosexual rights. Perhaps the scientific establishment can explain this in a flurry of "pah"s and ad hominems?

Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Pol Pot all killed millions and not for religion. Millions starve every day because of capitalism. Furthermore, I often hear of religious people helping others, inspired by their religions.

What a ridiculous statement. Fanatacism kills hundreds and maims thousands.

good post metavoid. matt, answer him instead of wasting your time with the turing machine kid over at the other thread.

i see were you’re coming from. but surely you’re not going to be ridiculous as to assume that all war and violenece and poverty, etc will end with religion? even if it did, why should i, if i subscribed to an organized religion, give up my beliefs simply because the world would be a better place? i’ve only been given certain things while i’m here on earth. the choice of thinking, and how to think, is one of these things. everyone should have the right to exercise this choice.

as immoral as you think religion is, and it may be this way, i am absolutly certain that it is a greater tragedy to take away a person’s feedom to choose such beliefs.

The post by Penumbral says it all. Religion is dominated by irrational, faith-based, dogma. A lot of the wars in the World (palestine/Israel, Pakistan/India, USA/Palestine, etc) have evolved along religious lines.

I think humanism is great. treating people right is the way to go and i really don’t care how people attain humanism, whether through religion or not. But the point is that Religion is a lot more (especially to religious people) than getting along with other people. There is a lot of baggage associated with it. First it’s love one another, then it’s you gotta be baptised with water, then no sex before marriage, donate 10% to the church, and finally, sell your soul for a holy roll.
…
Life’s just too short for that, i want to live this life on this earth, not live for the sake of some far away promised heaven brought to us by some anthropomorphic superman.

The conflicts in Israel/Palestine has not evolved along religious lines. The conflict in Israel is about land, power, right of sovereignty etc. The PLO (now the PA) is a secular organisation. Religious terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad are of course spurred on by their religious fervor, but that would be true in ANYTHING they did because they are so militantly religious. It is not an argument over religion though.

I’m not entirely sure what war is currently going on between the US and Palestine? Have you been hanging around the Socialist Workers too much Marshall?

• ben

Sorry Trix, I’ve not had much time to post recently so I didn’t see this thread was still going!

Come on Ben, of course it is, the Jews were persecuted because of who they were which was essentially defined by the their religion, hence they sought a land for themselves. If they hadn’t believed in Judaism they wouldn’t have been persecuted, Israel wouldn’t even have existed.

AS for US/Palestine, for an outsider it does look as if the US are (at least covertly) waging war on the Palestinians (edited, accidently put Israelis ), where does all the Israeli funding come from? Who vetos all the UN motions against Israel?

They believe in Individualism more than religion, hence their liberalism. They just don’t realise it. People are very stupid most of the time, if you asked someone in the west what their belief structure was very few would say Individualism, even though it’s the one which 99.999999% ferverently believe in. Religion in England is a farce, all people believe in is a vague idea that there is something out there and they then attach it to Christianity, but they are not true Christians. Out of all the people I have met and known through my life I’ve only really met 5 or 6 people who Really believed in a classical religion, mostly they believe some twisted hybrid caused by Individualism’s affect on Christianity.

My point was about when religion had a more ferverent following it was used as a suppresive tool and it still is in areas like Africa or the Middle East where people still ferverently believe in it. There is nothing ferverent about the majority of the English christians.

What’s your point? I didn’t deny that there were other causes of death and murder, I just said that religion is one of the major culprits. It is one of the greatest causes of conflict.

In fact all you have done is reinforce my point. When people start believing in rediculous one size-fits-all belief structures like communism, nationalism or religion a lot of people tend to die. And all because of an irrational belief system.

We do tolerate nationalists in this country, but we don’t respect them. Calling someone a BNP (British National Party) supporter paints them as evil in most people’s book. That’s what I want religious people to feel like, people like them believing in their proposterous God have killed so many people, so why respect them? I want them to question their religion and look at the misery it has caused and then to turn round to me and say that their belief system deserves any respect, let alone their God.

Fanatacism doesn’t, maybe fanatical Muslims/Christians/whatevers do. I don’t want to be semantically picky, but it was just a joke and a fantical atheist doesn’t have to be violent with it, what i actually said wasn’t offensive or in any way condoning the acts of certain types of fanatics. What you are essentially saying is that fanatical stamp collectors should be labelled in the same group as fanatical Muslims!

The statement was, in essence, a call to all aethists to start actively trying to ridicule and demean religion and convert others to the atheist cause. Everyday I see religious people spreading their lies and half-truths, they may not realise they are lies, but nevertheless I don’t see any atheists pounding the streets trying to set people free from the idiocy of religion.

In other words, tolerate religion, yes, respect it, no.

"As I listened to their spiel, I pondered whether I should be the one enlightening them; a very pretentious thought I admit. "

[laughing]

Thank you, Matthew, you made my day.

And I’ll admit, honestly, I love it when those guys show up. The last time that happened, I was at a job site building a deck. They came to speak to the home owner but I was the only one there, so they turned their guns on me. Bad mistake.

After a lengthy discussion they invited me to their church to speak to the congregation. I even wrote a paper(speech), dressed nice(a rare occasion), and was on my best behavior. No avail. They concluded that I just didn’t “want to believe” in God. Hey, this is the good news. When I first got there they were convinced that I was the devil. I spent the first thirty minutes explaining to them that atheism isn’t Satanism, and that I don’t believe in “devils” no more than I believe in “gods.”

All in all it was fun. If only to see the look on their faces.

Ben. It is hard to understand the Israeli/Palestine conflict outside of the religious context. Would Jewish settlers be so doggedly persistent outside of Zionism? Would Moslems be so radical outside of Jihad? Would the US support Israel so much if Christianity did not evolve from Judaism? Like it or not Religion is a fundamental aspect of a lot of people’s lives and therefore plays a big part in conflicts. One could make the argument that this is more of a misuse of religion than religion, but in the Christian religion at least, conflicts were even promulgated by the old deity himself.

Matt. I wholeheartedly agree. Individualism is so rampant over here (In the USA) that people no longer recognize it.

Something wrong about the world is that people believe that it is right to impress their children with ANTI religious messages a lot more often then giving them the truth about god. This causes people to question not only religion but other important parts of society such as law and order. If there is no God to keep us in place why should we behave in a certain manner?

What is the truth about God? I favor Matthew’s belief that no one knows.

Human society is based on codes of behaviour because we, as humans, can record our knowledge and pass it on to our successors. At some point, for instance, someone figured out that not hitting random people is a good thing, and in the present day that is a common rule for coexisting with others in a community.

Of course, the existence of laws doesn’t mean they should be followed blindly without any attempt to understand them. In fact, if they were, many of the debates that go on in this forum wouldn’t take place.

Particularly religious ones.

If you need any other justification for the need to destroy the evil that is religion it is ignorant statements like this one. Proves to you the extent of its lies and deciet. I’m not even going to vbother saying why as I’ve said it so many times before and I’m not starting another bloody discussion about the ‘need’ that our society has for God. It doesn’t need it.

There are also perfectly coherent reasons to believe three is no god, it’s not impossible not to know. You know there is a law of induction, and it is quite clear there is no God, but one you believe and the other you don’t. A bit of consistentcy would do this whole world a world of good!

Either moral actions are that way because God said so or Moral actions are that way in and of themselves. In the first case, morality seems perfectly arbitrary. God could just have easily have said pillage, rape, and plunder. In the second, you are already starting to see something distinct from the almighty God.

Wasn’t hitler the one that killed millions of jews?

Yes but… Religious fanatics are notorious for being dangerous… Atheists aren’t. That’s what baught me.